 So, if you'll recall, back in 2016, one of the main arguments that pundits and elites would use against Bernie's standards was this argument about electability. Do you progressives care more about purity, or do you actually want someone who can go up against the Republican and win, who's battle-tested, who's a pragmatist and knows how to get things done? In fact, let's look at this article from Barney Frank, who wrote that wishful thinking won't win the White House, meaning that, you know, if you're progressive, you shouldn't vote for Bernie Sanders because what you need to realize is that these are not practical positions for anyone to take. So if you want to win, you've got to be more like Hillary Clinton, you've got to be more centrist. Well, as it turns out, they were wrong. The people who said that Hillary was more electable than Bernie Sanders, they were wrong because she lost. When you put up a boring, vacuous centrist against the Republican, what you do is you suppress turnout because if you really want to win, what you need to do is replicate Stacy Abrams' strategy and register new voters, bring out your base, get people involved who kind of checked out, who have been politically apathetic because the way that people visualize politics, really the elites is there's this group of voters and winning is about winning over people in this group. But they don't think outside the box, they don't think that there are other people who don't vote who you need to go after, which is why they made this argument, electability. Barney can't win, Hillary can. So what's the argument that they're using against Bernie Sanders now in 2020, seeing that he's running up against another boring, vacuous centrist? This same exact argument that they used in 2016, and I'll give you an example of that. So the CNN headline reads, Biden's run embodies the big question of democratic primary. What's more important, policy or beating Trump? Now this kids is what I like to call a false dichotomy. These are not things that are mutually exclusive. In fact, I'd argue that they're inextricably linked because if you want to win, you need to have a robust policy platform because people don't care about personal stories and nice anecdotes. They want someone who's going to tell them exactly how their policies will benefit their lives. But for whatever reason, this new consensus in DC has emerged where policy is almost a bad thing. The most policy substantive candidates are somehow a liability. In fact, Nate Silver literally claimed that the desire to focus exclusively on policy substance is actually somehow elitist because rank and file voters don't care much about policy. Imagine that. They're going so far out of their way to defend people like Joe Biden who have zero policy substance and they're now saying that those of us who care about policy are elitist. Well, isn't your assumption they're elitist? Isn't that actually pretty condescending to think that normal voters don't care presumably because they're too dumb to care about policy? Not everyone is going to be a policy walk, but people do care about policy. What they care about is how your policies will impact their lives. So to say that they don't care and it's elitist is absurd, but nonetheless, this is what we're seeing all at the behest of Joe Biden because he is policy free because he lacks substance. They have to do what they did back in 2016 for Hillary Clinton now for Joe Biden and defend the fact that he is vacuous rather than challenging Joe Biden to do better rather than making him actually put up policies. They're just saying, well, look, he's more electable because he's vacuous. Okay. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. And we already tried that back in 2016 and it didn't work out, but nonetheless, keep saying that. I don't want to get too bogged down in this discussion about who has more policy and who doesn't. But the reason why I'm talking about it is because it relates to this broader theme of electability and going back to 2016, what was another thing that they said about Bernie and why specifically we shouldn't vote for him? Why he'd be a liability going up against the Republican? Well, the reason why we were supposed to not vote for Bernie is because the fact that he is someone who self-identifies as a socialist is going to hurt him in a general. And the same things they said then are being echoed now. So in an ABC News interview, somebody asked him, you know, is that title of Democratic Socialist going to hurt you? Here's how we responded to that. Trump seems to want to run against you. And certainly he wants to run and Republicans want to run against socialism. Okay. Is it time for you to disavow that label? I mean, given that... Look, you know, the problem is, and on a television interview, it's hard for me to describe in depth what we mean by that. When social security was created, what did the Republicans call it? Called socialism. When Medicare was created, what did they call it? Again. Medicaid was created. Anytime you do things for the people and you stand up to the wealthy and powerful, you'll be labeled this, that and the other thing. All of the issues... But this is a label you embrace. Yeah. But all of the issues that we are talking about, raising the minimum wage to a living wage, guaranteeing healthcare to all people, making public colleges and universities tuition-free, these are ideas that in one form or another are in fact supported by the American people. So in talking about Democratic socialism, you've often pointed to countries like Denmark as kind of the models. And you've acknowledged that Denmark taxes are a lot higher in Denmark. And in your words, you said, well, it is difficult to become very rich in Denmark. No one is allowed to be poor. So is that your goal for America where no one is allowed to be poor, but it's also difficult to become rich? Well, no. Look, we're always going to have rich and poor. But it is insane and grotesque that three families own more wealth in the bottom half of America. That the top 1% owns more wealth in the bottom 92%. That 49% of all the income goes to the top 1%. 1%. Look, we want companies to be profitable. That's good. But we don't want CEOs to make 300 times what their workers make. And I think you see that in many countries, including Scandinavia. You want a vibrant economy, but you want working people and the children. We have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on earth. You got 20% of elderly people living on social security benefits of less than 13,000. This is the richest country in the history of the world. We can and must do better than that. The reason why I personally don't believe that that socialist label will hurt Bernie Sanders is because he's owning it. And whenever he owns it, whenever somebody asks him to clarify what he means by that, even though he's more of a social Democrat, but he says, look, democratic socialism to me is implementing policies akin to social security, which is incredibly popular, taking a policy like Medicare and improving it and then expanding it. This is what I mean, really. When I say I'm a democratic socialist, but just, you know, at face value, just looking at this superficially, I think it makes sense for someone to assume that being a socialist will, uh, will hurt you in the general election because obviously Republicans will exploit that. They'll weaponize it and they'll fear longer nonstop, which is why someone like Joe Biden makes it very clear that he's not a socialist. In fact, this article states that he told Donald Trump, I'm no socialist. He's a capitalist. And thus it is logical for one to deduce that he is more electable, except the problem with this line of thinking is that just saying you're not a socialist doesn't really do much because Republicans aren't willing to engage in a good faith discussion about the merits of socialism versus capitalism. This is nothing more than a tactic. Anything that they don't like, they attached that socialist label to. They did this to Obamacare from the very beginning and they still stand by that. In fact, a 2017 article by Conservative Review still referred to Obamacare after it's been implemented, after we know what to expect as socialism and claimed, literally, that it fulfills Marx's vision. So it doesn't matter if you try to convince them that you're not a socialist, they're still going to say, but you're a socialist. And after Joe Biden went out of his way to communicate to people and Trump and Republicans that he's no socialist, can you guess what the Republicans are calling him? A socialist. As Tala Axelrod of the Hill writes, Vice President Pence hammered former Vice President Joe Biden and other leading 2020 Democratic presidential contenders as advocating a socialist agenda. I think the choice that we face in the country today is a choice between freedom and socialism increasingly. President Trump has been advocating an agenda that's built on the principles of freedom in the marketplaces, lower taxes, less regulation, more access to energy, better fair trade deals, Pence told CNBC on Friday. But increasingly, whether it be Joe Biden, whether it be Bernie Sanders, whether it be Elizabeth Warren and others in their party, they're advocating a socialist agenda of more government, higher taxes and the same tired policies that created the malaise of the last administration where you saw less than two percent economic growth, Pence said, hold on, hold on, hold on. I thought we were told anyways that Joe Biden is more electable and that Bernie Sanders is more of a liability because he claims he's a socialist. But yet Republicans are still calling Joe Biden a socialist after he said he's no socialist. It's almost as if Republicans don't really give a damn and they're just going to use that word against you to galvanize voters. It doesn't matter. So you can call yourself a socialist. You can call yourself the Easter Bunny. Republicans will call you what they want to call you, what they think is going to help them win. And that's what this is about. So anyone who is trying to claim that that socialist label makes Bernie Sanders a liability, I think it actually makes him the better bet because at least he's owning it and he is always given the opportunity to explain what he means, whereas Republicans will just say Joe Biden's a socialist and then they think he's trying to hide it. I mean, it's obvious. The fact that Mike Pence would put Joe Biden in the same category as Bernie Sanders and even Elizabeth Warren is preposterous. But nonetheless, that's what they will do. That's what they have been doing and they will do what they need to do to win. And that's what people really don't get. These pundits in DC, they think that, you know, it's more strategic to position yourself as a centrist. It's more strategic to be a pragmatist and try to appeal to the median voter. And in their view, the median voter is just someone who is directly in the center of Republicans and Democrats. But the problem is that that's actually not mainstream because they're failing to realize that both parties are incredibly out of touch with average voters. More people are independent now than Republican or Democrat because the parties don't represent them. So anyone who uses socialism and this electability argument to bolster their claim that you should opt for someone like Joe Biden as opposed to Bernie Sanders, one, either they're incredibly misinformed or two, they're trying to gaslight you. Because first of all, to say we need a centrist to beat Trump is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. We literally just tried that. I mean, I say this all the time on the show, but I have to say that because they don't get it. They still say the same thing. We need, we need a centrist. You know, if we elect someone who's far left, who's fringed like Bernie Sanders, we're going to lose. Except if your argument is that we need someone who is mainstream to be able to win against Trump, then they're undercutting their own argument because what they fail to see is that Bernie is mainstream. Bernie Sanders is opting for policies that are populist, meaning they are supported by most people. Federal jobs guarantee, Medicare for all, $15 minimum wage, tuition free public colleges. These are all policies that are supported by most Americans. Meaning their mainstream, but yet people will say, you know what, he's still far left. He's not electable and he's a liability. Maybe it's the case that they don't actually care about electability. Maybe they're just trying to lie to you because they know that Bernie Sanders is a threat to the status quo. Understand that a lot of the elites, the celebrities who push this electability narrative, they're comfortable economically and a lot of Democratic Party establishment figures. I believe that they'd actually be more comfortable losing with Biden than winning with Bernie Sanders because Nancy Pelosi, for example, knows that if Democrats win, that means they'd actually have to do something, which means this would put their base up against their donors and they don't want to do that. They don't want to offend their base and their donors. So they'd probably feel more comfortable just straight up losing and a lot of elites probably feel more comfortable with Trump than Bernie Sanders because even if Donald Trump is technically anti-establishment, there's still enough people in his ear that can control him. Whereas with Bernie Sanders, a lot of these special interests who bankroll both parties know that the gravy train will be over if Bernie Sanders gets elected. So if you see someone who is pushing this electability argument, understand this, they were wrong before and we have absolutely no reason to trust their judgment again, especially if they're advocating for the same strategy that led to Donald Trump's victory in the first place. So if they're saying Bernie is not as electable as a centrist, they're either dumb or they're gaslighting you and you should be wary of this individual because they're not looking out for your best interests. They're looking out for their best interests.